Maaza Mengiste
Photo: Annette Hornischer

Novelist; Essayist; Professor of English, Wesleyan University

Holtzbrinck Fellow - Class of Spring 2026

Maaza Mengiste is a novelist, essayist, and Professor of English at Wesleyan University. She holds a BA in English from the University of Michigan and an MFA in Creative Writing/Fiction from New York University. Her writing focuses on the lives of ordinary people amid social and political upheaval, and the intersections of photography, gender, and war. Mengiste is the author of Beneath the Lion’s Gaze (W.W. Norton, 2010), named among the ten best contemporary African books by the Guardian; and The Shadow King (W.W. Norton, 2019), finalist for the 2020 Booker Prize and named among the best books of the year by the New York Times, Guardian, Time, Elle, and others. She is the editor of Addis Ababa Noir (Akashic Books, 2019) and a winner of the 2021 Edgar Award for Best Short Story. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The London Review of Books, Granta, The Guardian, The New York Times, Esquire, Rolling Stone, and BBC, among other places. Mengiste has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, Fulbright Scholars Program, National Endowment for the Arts, Creative Capital, DAAD, Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, among other places. Mengiste also serves on the Board of Directors of Words Without Borders.

Project Description

A Brief Portrait of Small Deaths

At the Academy, Mengiste will work on her third novel, “A Brief Portrait of Small Deaths.” Set in Berlin during the interwar period, the novel centers on Milli, a Black German woman and the daughter of a well-connected communist. Originally from Hamburg, she is in Berlin to try her luck at a career on stage, and soon discovers Berlin’s bustling art world. There she rubs shoulders with German Expressionists and becomes a part-time portrait model just as the Nazis are gaining power. Drawing on historical documents, letters, diary entries, art criticism, and court records, “A Brief Portrait of Small Deaths” captures a grim period in German history, the rise of National Socialism and its campaigns against free cultural expression. In particular, the novel imagines the intimate lives of Black Germans portrayed and immortalized in what the Nazis later deemed “Degenerate Art.” In Berlin, Mengiste intends to conduct research on Nazi propaganda films featuring Black actors or pertaining to former African colonies. She also hopes to dig deeper into the connections between Hamburg and Berlin’s communist groups, and to gain a clearer sense of the global networks that sprang from those cities.

Academy Activities

Feb 17 2026
A Brief Portrait of Small Deaths: A Novel in Search of the Other Berlin Literature

Holtzbrinck Lecture

A Brief Portrait of Small Deaths: A Novel in Search of the Other Berlin

Reimagining the lives of some of Berlin's marginalized populations as the Nazis came to power.

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Feb 17 2026

A Brief Portrait of Small Deaths: A Novel in Search of the Other Berlin

Set primarily in 1930s Berlin, Maaza Mengiste’s novel-in-progress, “A Brief Portrait of Small Deaths,” reimagines the lives of some of Berlin’s marginalized populations as the Nazis came to power — African, Arab, Asian, Jewish, and many others. Mengiste’s research introduced her ...

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Feb 16 2026

Fellow Spotlight: Maaza Mengiste

Maaza Mengiste is a novelist, essayist, and professor of English at Wesleyan University. At the Academy, she is woking on a book set in 1930s Berlin that explores marginalized multi-ethnic and multireligious communities amid the rise of Nazism and the alliances they formed for survival. ...

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